I can’t go on.

I can’t fight anymore. I don’t want to fight. I resign. I give up. If I lose, I can stop. If I lose, I won’t be forced to win.

I can rest.

“Kin! Kin! I know you’re awake, so please stop ignoring me!” Mion frantically pleaded with her charge to get up, to struggle, to fight, to shout, to do anything.

Better than simply accepting death with closed eyes and open arms.

Kin ignored her. He simply lay there, limp, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Fighting hurts too much. It’s not worth it. Not worth it.

“Not worth it.”

Mion was aghast.

“...Kin? What’s not worth it?”

The thing that smiled started to swing Kin around, playing with him like a gigantic cat.

“This. All of it.”

“Living in this world’s not worth it.”

Swing

“It’s cold...and dark, and it’s just too...hard.”

Swing

“Everything hates you, and being alive hurts.”

Kin slammed into something, but he didn’t feel it.

“It hurts, Mion. It hurts so much. What’s the point?”

Swsh

“I don’t want to live in such a messed-up world.”

I wish I was never born into such a world.

Mion was starting to get confused. “Kin, wake up, you don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Kin drifted off, the stress of being swung around like a toy beginning to corrode at his mind. Blood vessels burst in his eyes, giving them a haunting red tint.

“Kin wake u-u-u-u--”

The psychological burden of the moment had temporarily overloaded Mion’s capabilities, glitching her parsing module and reducing her to mere stutters.

“Please, Kin, don’t go! Don’t leave me here! Please!”

Kin was vaguely aware of something shouting.

Doesn’t matter.

Please, just let me die.

Just let this whole twisted world die.

Everything. Let everything burn.

Maybe then it will be finally clean. No cold, no dark and no pain.

As Kin finally drifted off into sleep, he felt his body tingle and prickle with sudden warmth. He was aware of something screaming in the distance--a long, shrill sound, and very loud. The last thing he saw was rust, twisting and writhing and covering everything in sight.